Famous

May 1, 2011

Gr 8-11-At 14, Jamie Gordon took some photos of a model's embarrassing moment and sold them to a tabloid, which led to her own first taste of fame. Now 16 and a professional paparazzo, she is in LA to document a week in the life of starlet Willow Twine. Jamie feels as if she and Willow are friends, and she considers staying there to focus her energy on becoming the "Annie Leibovitz of the LA young actor scene." Her boyfriend, Nasim, is a complicating factor, and so is the mysterious lack of communication from Avy, a close friend and aspiring actor who ran away to LA eight months earlier. Then Jamie discovers six photos on her camera that could ruin Willow's career-and send Jamie's to new heights. Suspense about a man who is stalking Willow, what's in those pictures, and who took them drives this fast-paced narrative. Chapters jump between various episodes in Jamie's freshman and sophomore years, interwoven with emails to Nasim and dispatches from Avy's ill-fated trip to Tijuana for plastic surgery. Paying attention to chapter headings is essential to track each thread of the story. Strasser is a serious name-dropper, but the underlying message about the cost of fame is a sobering one. The author, best known for grittier novels, shows impressive range here, though a subplot about Jamie's disabled brother feels tacked on. Nonetheless, this book is likely to be snapped up and make a lasting impression on readers.-Amy Pickett, Ridley High School, Folsom, PA

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2011
Grades 7-12 Jamie Gordon takes pictures of famous people. And because she is only 16, a baby paparazzo, soon she is kind of famous herself. When Willow Twine, a teen superstar, needs someone to help rehabilitate her drug-tarnished image, she asks Jamie to come to L.A. to chronicle a week in her life. After pictures are taken that could boost Jamies career and ruin Willows, decisions must be made about the meaning of friendship, trust, and stardom. Strasser rips his story from the headlines as he circles in on how fame elevates, decimates, and utterly alters reality for anyone spinning in its orbit. The story is narrated from several points of view besides Jamies. Her friend Avy ruins his looks and his life trying to make it in Hollywood; an unhinged fan becomes obsessed with Willow; a police detective examines a murder and its unintended consequences. The narrative, which moves from character to character and back and forth in time, is sometimes a bother, but readers will be caught up in both the glamour and the dark underbelly of fame.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)